Friedrich Ludwig Schröder

Friedrich Ludwig Schröder ( born November 3, 1744 Schwerin, † September 3, 1816 in Rellingen ) was a German actor, theater director and playwright. As a reformer of Freemasonry, he established a private ritual work, the so called " Schrödinger Dersche method of teaching " that are still used today by many lodges - is maintained - even outside of Germany.

Life and work

Origin and Youth

His mother, Sophie Charlotte Schroeder ( born Biereichel and widow of organist Schröder Berlin) had his second wife married in 1749 in Moscow with the actor Konrad Ernst Ackermann. With her ​​pervaded Schröder Courland, Prussia and Poland, and came several times in children's roles, then came to the Frederick College in Königsberg, but was there abandoned by his parents in 1756 and found in a cobbler, then with a rope dancer a shelter.

In 1759 he went back to his parents in Switzerland, where he trained himself as an actor and dancer. After Switzerland and the Rhine regions traversed, he joined the Ackermann 's company in 1764 in Hamburg and shone at first especially as ballet master and comedy, but then went to the tragic compartment above and came in too high a championship.

Actor and theater director

Schröder met the reconnaissance Gotthold Ephraim Lessing know when he moved in 1767 for three years to Hamburg to work as a playwright and critic for the National Theater in Hamburg. The theater but had been close in 1769 due to financial reasons.

According to Ackermann's death in 1771, Schröder took over his mother's management of the Hamburg stage and went through his comedy The Wilful, soon several others followed, as a dramatic writer a name, while he acted through his influence on the improvement of the German theater in general by working towards unity and strong interaction of the components to achieving the overall purpose and held on morality and order among the society. Berthold Litzmann describes Schroeder's work in his first time in Hamburg:

"The two goals, achieving them, he has worked from the very first moment of his directorate leadership, can be divided into two words summarize: education of his audience from the standpoint of mere idle show lusts wallow uncritical amount to the conclusion of a, with flavors of higher viewpoints, seal Actor and assessed parterres, and secondly, the moral and zoziale raising his stand. "

Special services he did much to promote the naturalization translated by Christoph Martin Wieland Shakespeare's tragedies on the German stage. 1780 took Schröder a great art journey through Germany, also visited Paris and was followed in 1781 Professor at the Vienna Court Theatre, but soon returned to Hamburg, where he again ran the theater until 1798 before he retired to a small estate in Rellingen to to work as a writer.

In 1811 he took over the management of the stage again. As a tragic actor he distinguished himself as Lear, when Philip II in Schiller's Don Carlos and Otto von Wittelsbach, but was also in comic roles of significance and was particularly through the truth and simplicity of his game.

Reformer of Freemasonry

Already in 1774, Schröder was initiated on a proposal Johann Christoph Bode without ballot in Hamburg Masonic Lodge Emanuel for May- flower and added, where he received the Master degree in 1775 and the Master of the chair he was named in 1787. ( The date Schröder's admission into the Order of the Illuminati nichtfreimaurerischen organization is not known, but in that covenant, he received the monastic name ' Roscius '. ) 1792/93 he became a member of the Lodge ' unity and tolerance '. In 1795, the Masonic Hospital was opened in Hamburg on his initiative. In 1811 he suggested that the Grand Lodge of Hamburg was to establish itself as an independent Grand Lodge, and Executive Director from 1814 until his death as Grand Master. In addition to his work in the Lodge Emanuel for May- flowering Schroeder also founded its own Winkelloge Elise to warm the heart, which was intended primarily for actors and existed until 1777. He was co-founder of ' Engbundes ' and employees at the ' Federation of German Freemasons ' and later on ' covenant of Dissenters '. To start 1800, he eventually became the decisive reformer of Masonic ritualism in cooperation with the former Illuminati - The Illuminati was able to continue his work only up to about 1793 Bode - Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Carl Leonhard Reinhold and Christopher William hoof.

In the second half of the 18th century had the so-called " Strict Observance " a complex system of hierarchical gradations in European Freemasonry, modeled on the English teaching manner with high degree system established. At the beginning of the 1780s a counter-movement began to use that again to the old ritual of the three degrees is ( Apprentice - Journeyman - Master ) remembered. In this reform process of the ex - Illuminati Georg Heinrich Sieveking also called for the abolition of the " hieroglyphs and symbols ", which he described as a farce and customs. Schröder responded with his speech on "Morality and complacency as primary matter of friendship, and our images characters and secrets " in his box Emanuel. In it, he put this demand is equal to the resolution of Freemasonry and showed its relevance for the big brother chain. This led to talk duels between the two and eventually resulted in the fact that Sieveking on April 10, 1790 from his position as master of the chair of the Hamburg Lodge " St. George the verdant spruce " (est. 1743), resigned and his commitment in Freemasonry resigned.

As the old English original texts, however, were lost, one made out to reconstruct the rituals. Here Schröder comes to a special merit. As a self-taught, he collected historical materials on the history of Freemasonry since its origin to 1723, which he published in 1815. Based on these studies, he created German rituals for the three degrees that are still considered Schröder Dersche kind of instruction in use and are characterized by their simple clarity and ritual dynamics, as well as a commitment to the " idea of republicanism ." The Masonic researchers Ignaz Aurelius Fessler in Berlin ( a Illuminatenmitgliedschaft of him is disputed) was working on a similar reform, but eventually struck its own path.

His tomb is located in the cemetery Ohlsdorf.

Works (selection)

• The cousin in Lisbon ( 1784)
• Theater laws (1787 )
• Materials for the history of Freemasonry since its creation until 1723 (1815)

• Charlotte Lennox: What will be, will send at ease. Translated by Friedrich Ludwig Schröder. Herold, Hamburg, 1782.